The Oracles (10 page)

Suddenly her eyes brightened. An idea had occurred to her. It was a most daring idea, a more difficult
campaign
than any upon which she had, as yet, embarked. The obstacles were most inspiring. She loved to triumph in the face of opposition, and it was not an impossible idea.

‘I don’t see why not!’ she exclaimed.

‘You’ve thought of somebody?’

‘The War Memorial Committee. And I know where it ought to go too! In the vestibule here. At the top of the stairs.’

‘My dear Martha! Not this committee.’

‘I could try. I’ve got my way before on committees. I know what I want and they don’t. That’s everything.’

‘The town would never accept it. There’d be an uproar.’

‘In my experience there never is much uproar
after
a purchase has been made,’ she said. ‘It’s discussion before that you want to avoid. Every Tom, Dick and Harry then thinks he has the right to an opinion. The whole thing must be very carefully handled. I must sow a lot of good seed, and get to work on as many members of the committee separately as I can, before I actually bring up the proposal. And then … bounce them!’

She could do that, he remembered. She had done it in the case of the Pavilion.

‘The most important person is young Pattison,’ she continued. ‘They all listen to him. I wish he hadn’t been at that wretched party. And I never feel that his little wife is very … if I could get a chance to … is she here, I wonder? She generally is, about now. Oh yes, I see her. With Mrs. Hughes.
Mrs.
Hughes!
She’s on the committee. Why, I cannot think. I’ll just stop on my way out and say a civil word or two, for there really is no time to be lost.’

She got up and handed him her parcels.

‘But, Martha …’

‘Carry this one carefully. It’s got bottles in it.’

‘Er … we haven’t seen the Apollo yet, have we?’

This took her by surprise. The omission had slipped from her memory. She hesitated and then said quickly:

‘It’s Conrad’s work. Possibly not his best work. But anything by Conrad will be more than these people deserve.’

Don was inclined to agree with her. He loathed East Head.

Had Christina, Allie, and Mrs. Hughes perceived their danger, they would have got away before Martha reached their table. But she was an expert in getting quite close to people before they were aware of it, for she had been practising this art ever since she could crawl. She sailed down the room, chattering to Don, and was nearly past their table before appearing to recognise them. Then, with a start, she whisked round, flashed her teeth, and popped into the fourth chair, with a laughing apology. She wanted to tell Mrs. Hughes how much she had enjoyed the Congregational Sacred Concert. After which there was no escape from the hosepipe of her affability.

Don, who stood patiently behind her and held her parcels, could not but admire her skill. Babies were enquired after, and she managed to get from Bobbins to the Apollo without any apparent change of subject. The modulations included a reference to Christina’s absence on Sunday night, a deprecating allusion to the party, Conrad’s absence, apologies for having involved poor Mr. Pattison in so rowdy a fiasco, thanks for his kindness, hope of his forgiveness, and a promise of the Apollo upon some other occasion.

‘For it was that he came for,’ she concluded
regretfully
. ‘That he wanted to see. He’s such a busy man, and he gave up his time … he must have been so disappointed. It distresses me very much. But I give my word that he shall see it as soon as I can arrange it. Will you tell him?’

‘Yes,’ said Christina. ‘I’ll tell him.’

‘Is it very beautiful?’ asked the innocent Mrs. Hughes.

That, suggested Martha with a smile, depended upon what one meant by beauty.

‘In the eye of the beholder, so they say,’ put in Allie.

She meant to be sarcastic, but was assured that she had uttered a profound truth. We cannot recognise beauty, said Martha, until we have learnt how to look for it.

Christina sat with her elbows on the table, her chin cupped in her hands, and wondered what was behind all this. Martha was up to her tricks. Christina had
suspected
as much when the invitation to the party was given. Now she was sure of it. Dickie was to be drawn into something. She knew Martha, if he did not. Some advantage was going to be taken of his affection for Swann. His anxiety to know more about art and culture was, in some fashion, to be exploited.

She had, in the past, despised and derided Martha. Now she was growing actively hostile. She would not have it. Nobody was going to bully Dickie except
herself
. She began to follow the conversation more
attentively
than she would otherwise have done. She wanted to contradict this woman, to catch her out in some untenable statement. Nobody ever contradicted Martha. That was the trouble. They might laugh at her behind her back, but nobody knew enough to prove her wrong.

An experimental handfull of good seed was being sown. Martha thought the opportunity favourable, since Mrs. Hughes was also on the Selection Committee. The first step must be to break down an inevitable resistance to the unfamiliar. These destined purchasers would certainly dislike the Apollo; of that much she was sure, although she had not seen it herself. Very simply, in terms which the meanest intellect could grasp, she explained to them that many acknowledged masterpieces have been, in their day, derided as
ridiculous
and ugly. Only the elect can appreciate original
and progressive art. By the masses it has always been greeted with shouts of protest.

‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Christina suddenly.

Martha pulled up and gaped at her. Mrs. Hughes and Allie, emerging from a lethargy of inattention, gaped too.

The word
shout
had suddenly reminded Christina of Dickie in the British Museum. Somewhere behind him towered vast knees and flowing draperies. Dickie’s face, and Dickie’s voice, came back very clearly. He was telling her something.
They
shouted
,
he said.

‘I mean,’ she explained, flushing a little, ‘they don’t always shout
against
,
do they? Sometimes they shout
for.
I mean … I heard … somebody told me … when they finished that great temple they have in Athens … the … the …’

The wretched name eluded her. Not the Pantheon. What was it? She began to repent of her boldness.

‘The Parthenon?’ suggested Martha kindly.

‘That’s it. The Parthenon. Well, when it was finished, last of all they put up those statues, the ones they have in the British Museum now. They’re all broken, but you can see they were wonderful. And they were quite a new kind of statue at that time. Nobody in Athens had ever seen anything like it before. But when the people saw them they all started shouting and cheering, even the slaves who had built the temple. Even the slaves saw at once that they were marvellous. I mean, it may be difficult for ordinary people now to admire new art. But it hasn’t always been like that, has it?’

For a moment or two Martha had nothing to say. To be pulled up by anybody on such a point was an unusual experience for her; to be pulled up by little Mrs. Pattison was outrageous.

‘Oh well … the Greeks‚’ she said at last—‘they were different, weren’t they?’

There was a murmur of assent from the other two. The Greeks could have nothing to do with it. They wore no trousers, spoke a foreign language, and had been dead a long time. It was strange of Christina to bring them up.

Christina, beaten in the first round, found herself wishing, almost for the first time in her life, that she knew more. Generally speaking, she believed that she knew all that was necessary to get along very well in the world. From the ante-natal attitude to the Incarnation, she had all the facts and ideas essential to her credit and comfort neatly filed in their respective pigeon-holes. Some compartments were almost empty, no doubt; there were a great many subjects about which she did not need to know. But now, disconcertingly, she felt that she was ill-equipped. Martha must surely be talking nonsense, but there was no stopping her, unless she could be met and challenged upon her own ground.

I don’t believe the Greeks were so very different from us, mused Christina. They were people. I don’t believe people alter so much. Only they had better artists, so it was nicer for them. If I knew more, I’m sure I could think of some people later than the Greeks, just ordinary people, who didn’t need to be lectured by Martha before they could see that a statue was beautiful. And now she’s telling us that we’re so awful, we want art to be just like a photograph, and show us exactly what we see; it’s only people like her who can appreciate being shown what they don’t see. So what about that picture? That picture we saw once that I loved so much, Dickie tried to get a copy for me? The Virgin Mary and the Baby in front, and, behind, that darling little tiny town, and the
river, and all the ships, and the little people, so clear! It’s like a fairy tale, I said. And Dickie said that was the exact truth about it, because it was a magic picture, it gave us a magic long sight, which we haven’t really got, because our real eyes wouldn’t see all that, so far away, it would just be blobs. He’d painted them as clear as if they were near, only tiny. Which made it like a fairy story. Well, he was painting something we don’t see, and we liked it. And it wasn’t new or modern. It was a famous Old Master. If only I could remember his name I’d … Van … Van … was it Van Dyck? I don’t think so. He painted nothing but Charles the First. If I get it wrong she’ll score off me again, as she did over the Parthenon. Van … Van … I must ask Dickie. I will ask Dickie when we’ve made it up.
Provincial!
And he hasn’t apologised.

Mrs. Hughes and Allie were not listening at all. They had no particular reason for wishing to contradict Martha. Mrs. Hughes thought what a pity it was that Martha’s mother had not put braces on her teeth. It was just like the Skippertons to have neglected such a detail. They idolised their child and allowed her to grow up looking like a ferret. Allie was thinking that she must get some wire for mending fuses. Something that Martha had said about the technique of Reg Butler reminded her of it. She would get it on her way home.

Nobody had anything to say when the little lecture came to an end. Martha rose, declaring that she was talking too much. They must forgive her. After all, it was such a privilege to have Conrad Swann living in their town.

‘What rot she talks!’ exclaimed Allie, as soon as the Rawsons were out of earshot.

‘Why didn’t you say so?’ snapped Christina.

‘That would have been rude.’

‘I think somebody ought to stand up to her
sometimes
.’

‘Oh, you were marvellous. All about the Parthenon! She looked as if she’d sat on a pin.’

‘Why didn’t you back me up?’

‘My dear! I couldn’t know less about the Parthenon.’

‘I don’t believe Martha knows much,’ said Christina. ‘I believe some really educated person could sew her up in no time. We just let her walk over us. Oh … Van Eyck!’

‘Van how much?’

‘Just a name I was trying to remember. I’d have argued with her if only I’d remembered it in time.’

‘What’s the point of arguing with her? I didn’t bother to listen. Just a lot of blather.’

Mrs. Hughes had been pursuing her own train of thought. Some part of Martha’s homily had made an impression upon her.

‘It’s true,’ she said suddenly.

‘What’s true?’ asked Allie.

‘Some of what she said is true. Look how great artists have always starved. Well … often have. Just because they weren’t appreciated till too late. I always remember that picture, that famous picture, of the poor young artist starved to death. Stretched on the couch, with his white face, only a boy really, and the candle flickering out, and the day breaking through the window. Death of … death of … and all his poems torn up, poor fellow. Yes, he was a poet really, not an artist. But it’s the same thing. Starving! Just for want of a little encouragement. It made a great impression on me. Because he was a real man. I’d remember who he was if I could remember his name. And he did turn out to
be a great poet, I believe. I don’t know if I’ve read any of his, because I can’t remember his name. Death of … death of … I can only think of Chatterly and I’m sure that’s not it.’

‘Oh, Mummie,’ said Allie, ‘that man died of
consumption
, not starvation. You’re thinking of that book Daddy wouldn’t have in the house. He wrote poetry too, I think.’

‘No. He was quite modern. This poor young fellow lived a long time ago. In the picture he had knee breeches.’

‘Well, I don’t see what all this is in aid of, anyway,’ said Allie. ‘Who is starving now?’

‘Conrad Swann,’ said Christina. ‘At least, he’s dog poor. If you ask me, Martha wants to raise money for him. Have an exhibition, perhaps, and make us all go.’

‘Well, I’ll go,’ said Mrs. Hughes. ‘And if I can manage to appreciate it I will. It’s a shame if an artist never gets appreciated till he’s dead.’

Some of the good seed was already germinating.

E
ARLY
on Tuesday morning a man came to turn off the water at Conrad Swann’s house because the water rate had not been paid, and the final notice had been ignored. He gave Dinah a paper which she could not read; she put it with a heap of unopened bills on the hall table. After that no water came out of the taps. The children accepted this as they accepted other deprivations. They had, luckily, a pump outside the kitchen door which still worked.

They were all listless and depressed. Their few toys and treasures had been destroyed with their tree, so that they had no resources and did not know what to do with themselves. On Monday they had gone down to the beach, but it was a long walk, and nobody felt inclined to repeat the entertainment. They hung about the house and garden and at last drifted into a sort of game: they caught snails and imprisoned them in matchboxes.

This was perfectly satisfying to the younger children. They would have been content with it for weeks, for it made few physical or mental demands upon them. They had merely to find names for their captives, peer at them in their matchbox houses, and issue reports on their progress. But it was not enough for Serafina, who needed some livelier protection from boredom. She had nothing to do, nothing to read, and no company. The apathy which protected the others was impossible to her. Some nourishment for the mind she must have, and she preserved herself on a diet of fantasy. Without
it, the facts by which she was surrounded would have been too much for her.

Eventually she broke up the snail game with the announcement that a siege was going on. The whole house was surrounded by the Enemy, who had assembled in full force to release their comrade in the shed. The man who had turned off the water might have looked like a human, but he was really an Artefact in disguise and he had been sent by the Traitor.

This was their name for Martha Rawson, with whom Serafina had a long-standing feud. From the very first their hostility had been declared and open. Martha had made no attempt to conceal her dismay when the little Swanns were presented to her. To take Conrad and his lady under her wing had been an attractive
responsibility
. The addition of Polly and Mike had not been so welcome. When, three months later, Serafina, Dinah and Joe had been returned to their father, because he had failed to pay for their board elsewhere, her comments had been bitter. These comments had been made in French, but Serafina had lived in France for much of her life and understood enough to resent them.
Collecting
what French she could remember, she had fired off her comments on Martha, which were abusive rather than apt.

‘
Et
pourtant
elle
pu
f
ortement!
’
she had shrieked, before being dragged from the room.

Conrad and Elizabeth had laughed about it afterwards. They did sometimes laugh, there were a few cheerful moments, in those early days at Summersdown. It was only gradually that life had fallen into complete
disintegration
. Elizabeth had, at first, been rather kind to Serafina, never treating her as a child, but addressing her as an equal in misfortune. A sort of companionship had
sprung up for a while. Elizabeth had interesting things to tell about the world, and life on the stage; she even gave Serafina a few lessons in elocution. But now she was always fuddled, and Conrad had been living, for months, so secluded a life in the studio that his final vanishing made very little difference to anybody.

They were both, for some mysterious reason, in the power of the Traitor, who came and went at will, gave orders to everybody, and took a sinister interest in the Artefacts. She was always trying to get into the studio, unless Conrad locked her out. He had, so Elizabeth once said, to sing to her for his supper, although the children had never heard him do it. He never sang at all at Summersdown. In the old lost life, when
everybody
was happy and quite different, he used to sing beautifully. Now he did not even whistle. He had become increasingly silent as the siege grew more grievous.

This notion of a siege had been present in Serafina’s mind for some months. It was not, alas, something which she had invented; she knew that it was real, but to describe it in these terms made it dramatic and therefore bearable.

They had all been shut up in this house against their will, and there was no comprehensible reason for it. Elizabeth was as much a victim as anybody else. She hated being there. Once, when Serafina asked why she had been obliged to come, she had explained it all, very drearily, with a plenitude of physical detail. Everybody had to do it, she said, and she wished to God that it were otherwise, because doing it with Conrad had forced her to sacrifice everything else in life; but people could not help themselves, as Serafina would find out for herself some day. Serafina was sorry for them and 
glad that children did not have to do it. She felt that grown-up people were more to be pitied than children.

They were all, however, afflicted by a growing
solitude
, by gathering shadows. Laughter ebbed and
disappeared
. They were on a little island which kept growing smaller; the compass and scope of life
continually
diminished. With the loss of the tree, and the departure of Conrad, they seemed to be completely cut off. He, at least, had constituted a slender bridge between the past and the present. He had been there, and now he was here—the only surviving possession that they had, greatly changed, as they all were changed, but a symbol of continuity. In the past he had talked and laughed and played games with them. Here he was haggard, silent, and generally invisible. But he still had the same kind voice. When, in extremity, she appealed to him he never refused what help he could give,
although
it was often pitifully inadequate. His sad eyes, meeting hers, apologised for their common helplessness.

Something like a siege was certainly going on and it was getting worse. She commanded that sentries should be posted all round the house, to ward off further invasions. The others objected to this interruption of the snail game but were easily overruled. Serafina patrolled the fortress and received reports.

Nobody else came during the morning except Lobster Charlie. She ran up to Elizabeth for instructions, since Charlie expected cash down and they were generally obliged to send him away, although they all liked lobsters. Today, however, the omens were favourable. Elizabeth was actually up and dressed. She did not ask how the hell she was to pay for lobsters. She told Serafina to buy two, and she took a great deal of money, pounds and pounds, fastened with a rubber ring, out
of her handbag. One note was extracted. As she gave it to Serafina she said:

‘If you want any more for anything, you’ll find it in this little drawer in my dressing table. I’ll leave some there. Are you looking? This little drawer. I’ll put some money into it.’

Serafina stared. This was a change. Elizabeth seldom had any money, and it was usually impossible to get so much as sixpence out of her.

Changes, in Serafina’s experience, were not for the better. She looked anxiously round the room, which was littered with clothes. A half-filled suitcase caught her eye.

‘Are you going away?’ she demanded.

Elizabeth started and hesitated before she said:

‘God no! What put that into your head?’

‘You’re packing.’

‘No I’m not. I’m only looking over my things. Get along and buy the lobsters. You can keep the change for sweets if you like.’

But she is going, thought Serafina, as she ran
downstairs
. Who will come then? Who will come to take us away?

She had little trust in grown-up people but she still retained some crumbs of faith in certain natural laws. Children, so she believed, were never left alone, quite alone, in a house. She had never heard of that happening. There was always some older person, of very little use perhaps, but a symbol of responsibility. Orphans were put into orphanages because it was impossible that children should be in a house alone. Conrad had gone. Elizabeth was going. Somebody, therefore, was bound to come. Her spirits rose. Perhaps the siege was over.

For a fraction of a second she glanced at the thought 
that it might all have been a mistake. They might begoing right back, to home, to … but she winced away from it. No fantasy, no daydream, could include that possibility. She could pretend many things, but not that.
Dead!
There was nothing to be done with that word except forget it, and forget a morning long ago when the house had been full of people saying it.
Dead
,
dead
,
dead!
And at Mrs. Parker’s, to whom they were then taken, people kept saying it too: Poor little things! Their mother is
dead
,
dead
,
dead!
It sounded what it was, a sickening final thud.

She bought the lobsters and they all had a lovely but indigestible dinner. The siege really seemed to be less oppressive until Joe discovered that he had been sitting on his favourite snail. He bawled so loudly that
Elizabeth
came down, complaining that she could not hear herself think, and asking why the hell they could not go off and play in their tree?

There was a shocked silence. They felt embarrassed, as though she had asked some indecent question. Before anybody could think of an answer her attention was diverted:

‘Look out! That child is going to be sick!’

Joe, between grief and lobster, which never agreed with him, had begun to retch. Everybody dispersed hastily, lest the spectacle should make them sick too. He was left to his fate in the kitchen. But Serafina went afterwards to help him, since he was too small to clear up the mess adequately. She filled the scrub bucket at the pump and, holding her nose, she mopped the kitchen floor, while Joe hiccupped sadly over the snail, squashed so flat in his little matchbox house.

‘Do you think it hurt him, Serafina?’

‘Horribly,’ snapped Serafina.

‘Has he gone to Heaven?’

‘No. To Purgatory, for ten thousand million years.’

Joe howled in despair, and her conscience smote her. It was very cruel to torment him because she was wretched herself. She went to the cupboard and found a small mustard tin, emptied the contents into a saucer, rinsed it, and gave it to him.

‘Here’s a lovely house that won’t squash,’ she said, ‘and you can put quite a big snail in it. You can keep guard down by the shed, if you like; there are lots of big snails there.’

Joe immediately cheered up and decided to call the big snail Harold.

The other sentries were dismissed to their posts and Serafina patrolled the path in the front garden. The Enemy was certainly on the move; there was the smell of danger in the air. She was not in the least surprised to see the Traitor coming up the path.

They glared at one another but did not speak. The Traitor marched into the house, where she had some kind of altercation with Elizabeth. Their angry voices were audible, even out in the garden.

Serafina amused herself by doing a smart sentry-go between the front door and the gate.

Suddenly, within a matter of seconds, she became weary of the Artefact game, outgrew it, and discarded it for ever.

It was no help and it was not true. Those things were merely
things
;
they could supply no more drama. Yet without drama she felt totally unprotected. It was as though she had been thrust out of some refuge which, with considerable valour, she had constructed for herself. The door had been locked behind her. The Traitor was a menace, not because she was leagued with imaginary
bogies, but for some much worse, much more mysterious reason. There was a siege, but children doing sentry-go could not hope to raise it. These evils were real; they were as dreadful and final as her mother’s death had been, and there was as little to be done about it.

Desolate, at the end of her resources, she wandered away from the house and up into the meadow. She lay down in the long grass, not far from the blasted stump of their tree. She had thought that she might be going to cry, but no tears came. She wished that she could be nothing; not dead, but just nothing at all. Eternal life was the last thing to be desired.

Presently Joe came into the field. Since she had abandoned the game she did not ask for any report of his observations by the shed. He was carrying on a long conversation with Harold, now established in the mustard-tin house. As she watched him she
remembered
him suddenly as a baby, in a high chair, opening his mouth like a bird for the spoonfulls which their mother put into it. She saw her mother too, more clearly than usual—the dark hair in a smooth bun on the back of her neck, and an absentminded expression on her face. She had been feeding Joe and thinking of
something
else.

Serafina writhed and rolled and drummed her heels on the ground. The ache at her heart was intolerable; it was physical agony. If she could not appease it she would die. She called to Joe and, when he came, pulled him down beside her. She hugged him and covered him with kisses.

‘You’re cuggling me!’ observed Joe in dispassionate surprise.

Caresses were no part of Serafina’s technique as a little mother. She had given and received very few since 
she came to Summersdown. Joe liked it. He submittedhimself to these unaccustomed endearments with a pleased sensuous smile.

‘Mrs. Pattison cuggles Bobbins,’ he remembered.

‘Yes.’

‘After his barf. Tell about Bobbins.’

He had seen all these wonders himself but he liked to hear them described.

‘He has a little basket, lined with blue,’ said Serafina. ‘And a brush and a powder-puff, with little blue birds on them.’

‘I sawn it, din’t I?’

‘You had a basket like that too, when you were a baby.’

‘I bemember. So I did.’

‘Oh no, you couldn’t remember. You were only a tiny, tiny little baby.’

‘I do bemember. I were sick in it.’